Scary Snape
by elphieT
Summary: Tonks recounts to her younger friends of the Order how Snape earned his notorious reputation at Hogwarts... and claims full responsibility for it!


**So apparently, according to some magazine or other, Alan Rickman once had a voice teacher who claimed that his voice sounded like it came from "the back end of a drainage pipe" ... poor man. Alas, the phrase struck me as something Tonks might have said... perhaps accidentally in front of the man she was describing. Enjoy :)**

**Disclaimer: I do not own anything within the realm of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter... but I do own a Comet 260! No, seriously, I made one for my Tonks cosplay ;)**  
**Also, I am no good with titling my stories, but I refuse postpone uploading this one any longer simply because I don't have something better than a label for it. **

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At the conclusion of the Order meeting, Molly announced that dinner would be served a little later than usual due to the unexpected loss of some key ingredients. She threw Tonks a subtle look, but graciously did not humiliate the girl further by explaining to the rest of their mates that the clumsy young witch had earlier tripped into the pantry while on the hunt for a snack and had fantastically taken a few of the lowest shelves down with her. Molly hadn't scolded her that time, instead she had laughed at how ridiculous Tonks looked sitting on her bum, covered with flour and dripping, broken eggs. The lack of an explanation did not, however, deter her mates from throwing smirking or exasperated glances her way, knowing full well that she was the source of most unexpected damages. So Tonks decided to vacate the adults' gathering place in favor of the younger company closer to her own age in the sitting room of Grimmauld Place.

"Oh, Ronald, that is not true!"

"It is so! Seamus told me that he saw-"

"Ron, hush up! The meeting could be over at any minute and he could walk by and hear you!"

Tonks grinned at Hermione and Ron's argumentative voices as she came down the hall, amused as always by how obvious it was to everyone but them that they were meant for each other. As she appeared from around the corner, Ron gave a startled jump and his mates started to snicker at him. She feigned offense, knowing immediately who the subject of their conversation had been, "Look that much like Snape, do I? Thanks, Ron."

As she plopped down in the nearest armchair and made herself quite comfortable, the youngest Weasley boy breathed a sigh of relief.

"Hey, Tonks," George smiled, "got any Snape horror stories you'd like to add to the round robin?"

"Yeah, we can only dream about what kind of wondrous adventures he caught you in the middle of," his look-alike added.

Tonks smirked, "Oh yeah, I've served some _heinous_ detentions with Snape."

Hermione made a terse, indignant sound, which Tonks ignored. Dumbledore clearly trusted Snape, so she did, too. But she also trusted her cousin's stories that Snape had always been a greasy git and therefore did not completely sympathize with Hermione's disapproval of her mates' constant disrespect for their potions professor.

"Believe it or not, Snape wasn't so notorious when I started school, actually. It was only his third year teaching and he was known for being stern and reserved, but I'm actually to blame for unintentionally sparking the 'Snape is the professor hell regurgitated' bit." She added, looking at Ron's expression, "Sorry, mate."

"Oh yeah, this ought to be good!" Fred beamed in admiration as the twins settled in for story time.

Tonks abandoned her leisurely pose and sat forward, grinning from ear to ear as the memory of her first disciplinary encounter with Severus Snape began to replay in her mind. "It was my very first detention - with Snape, that is - and it was the _worst_. I was performing for my friends at lunch..."

_"Make your hair rainbow!"_

_Dora happily obliged her friends in their favorite lunch time activity. Her nose was already upturned like a pig's snout, her eyes were a vibrant violet, and her mouth appeared to be upside down._

_"Can you grow whiskers like a cat?"_

_The long hairs tickled her face as they sprouted from her cheeks and she lost control of her other adjusted features from the distraction. They grew till their length matched the width of each shoulder and she gave them a little shake, instantly deciding that the sensation of the stiff hairs pulling against her skin was too strange to endure for long. The whiskers disappeared and she rubbed at her cheeks trying to rid herself of the foreign feeling. But then she thought of a brilliant idea, "Give me someone to impersonate!"_

_"Professor Sprout!" fellow Hufflepuff Emilyn requested._

_The young metamorphmagus concentrated hard on the curly, salt and pepper hair of her head of House. Her cheeks puffed out and her eyes grew larger, as did the eyes of her mates in wonderment. She giggled as smiles slowly spread on the others' faces, "Someone else!"_

_"Try the Grey Lady! Can you make yourself see-through like a ghost?"_

_The miniature Professor Sprout pursed her lips, "I can't make myself invisible, so I don't think I can make myself see-through, but I can do the Grey Lady."_

_Again she pictured her subject. Her hair grew out, becoming a richer grey, less curly and more wavy. When she opened her eyes, they shone a steely color and her complexion had gone ashen. Instantly the other children bombarded her with requests, which she acknowledged one by one with accurate transformations._

_"Snape!" red headed Charlie Weasley shrieked. "Do Professor Snape!"_

_Dora grinned her approval, then took a moment to study the mental image of her potions professor. She squeezed her eyes shut focusing first on the shoulder length, greasy black hair. Her hair slithered back into her head several centimeters from its current waist length, then she felt her nose begin to grow. When her transformation was finished, she opened her eyes to find her friends' faces contorted with silent glee._

_"I am Professor Snape," she intoned to the best of her ability like the man she was mimicking. "I never wash my hair, and my voice sounds like it comes from the back end of a drainage pipe."_

_The children about her burst into hysterics and Dora felt her mouth raise from its previously grim line before she, too, started laughing uncontrollably. _

_She didn't notice right away when their laughter petered out, didn't see the grins fall from their faces as looks of terror took their place. By the time she'd caught on, it was too late. A shadow fell over her like the angel of death crawling its way across the table, ready to harvest the soul of the young jokester. A great hand landed heavily on her small shoulder and clenched causing her to jump and whimper._

_"Miss Tonks," Professor Snape's voice drawled slowly, "come with me."_

_She allowed herself to be dragged from her seat and out of the Great Hall like a doomed rag doll, the double doors slamming shut behind her and cutting off any hopes of rescue from her friends or lunching professors._

"What did he do to you?" Ron inquired wide eyed.

Tonks shrugged, "Don't remember. I was so traumatized I blocked it from my memory. All I know is that Charlie told me that for two weeks straight I didn't morph at all and I was the quietest, politest, most studious student in the whole school. I vaguely remember sitting in Professor Sprout's office wrapped in a blanket and holding a cookie, but being too scared to eat it."

"He couldn't have done anything truly horrible to you," Hermione insisted.

"Of course not," Fred joked, "Thumb screws aren't so bad are they, Tonks?"

The pink haired witch shook her head, "I doubt Snape would have restrained himself to mere thumb screws for me. Whatever he did, it scared me into good behavior and everyone figured he'd tortured me or something. He's since been known as the most feared professor Hogwarts has ever had. And you'll always see me on my best behavior when he's around."

The elder witch returned to her relaxed position stretched over the arm chair, kicking her feet up onto the coffee table and supporting the back of her head with her interlocked palms. Ron looked slightly paler than he had before and chuckled nervously with the others who were enjoying the story of their friend's former misfortune.

But suddenly their faces fell and their eyes grew. Harry's face sported defiance, Ginny's expression was unreadably somber, Hermione appeared to be musing, Ron was ever paler, and the twins bore the ghosts of smiles, as though they knew that the dirty joke was not entirely over.

And then the grim reaper's shadow crept over her again, slowly swallowing her whole from the top of her head all the way down to her toes.

"Your presence has been requested in the kitchen," came that horrible, horrible voice from behind, "_Nymphadora."_

She was frozen with the fear that she remembered from that fateful day so many years ago. How long had he been standing around the corner? What had he heard?

"Now," came the final order.

Tonks leapt up and scrambled to leave the room, knocking a knee into the end table and nearly sending the lamp to a messy end on the floor. After struggling to settle the lamp, she half hopped out of the room as fast as she could on her injured leg.

Severus Snape regarded the children for a moment in his ominous way, then spun with a swirl of his robes and left his students to wonder in silence.


End file.
